Week 1: Draft Class Prospect Reports

Women can make healthy choices like
carrots...

So...I have to admit, I'm a little bit leery about putting together prospect reports this year. It's not that I have any doubt that you all pretty much treat them as gospel, that they become, like the Torah, your ethical and practical guide (which reminds me, you should all be eating lots of prosciutto. It is delicious). But if I learned anything from this week's episodes (and I always do. The Bachelorette is basically a modern-day Sesame Street or perhaps, since Sesame Street is the modern-day Sesame Street, a three-part mini-docu-series about race in America), it's that women really shouldn't be making choices. So...maybe we can just all agree to ignore these (which is clearly so hard!) except for you, Brandon?

Or they can make terrible choices like
dressing up like slutty cookie monster...

I mean, look, I think it's been well-established that I have the gender politics of a playground game of kickball, and yet still, this week's episodes really managed to rub me the wrong way. I actually do believe that ABC went into this because they couldn't pick between Kaitlyn and Britt (read: they weren't sure that men would find Kaitlyn attractive enough and they figured if they picked Britt, their female audience would revolt), but that's not exactly how it played out on screen. Both women spent portions of the night feeling victimized and embarrassed and acutely aware of how catty the process made them seem. (I too am acutely aware of my own cattiness as my favorite part of the episode was, by far, when Britt alluded to Kaitlyn's vulgarity and then went on to say "I feel like I need to prove myself as wife material so they'll put a rose in my box." Hee hee hee). And if all of that wasn't enough, it just got worse as the night progressed and Chris Harrison stepped in to send Ryan M. home. I'm not exactly stepping up and taking the pro-Ryan M., ass-grabbing stance, but in any other year that would have been the woman's choice in consultation with Chris. And this year it really just served to highlight that we've apparently decided it's too dull or perhaps too unrealistic to have to watch a woman in the driver's seat (especially a woman who's not putting on her makeup in the rearview mirror as she drives).

But I think we can all agree that their choices are
better when they are actually choices made by
Chris Harrison.

I desperately hope this pathetic night one set-up doesn't stifle all that is great about Kaitlyn. She is dynamic and funny and strong, and I'd hate to see her go the way of insecurity (more commonly known as Ashley Hebert Lane) and constant doubt. I hope that Kaitlyn doesn't spend the next eight episodes plagued with thoughts of Britt, and I hope the men aren't signing up for Bachelor in Paradise in hopes of meeting their one-time second choice. But mostly, I hope that it doesn't affect our usual metrics. Because there's so much science in these things!

As per usual, I'll be rating each of the men on:

Attraction (a): The degree to which Kaitlyn demonstrated attraction to a guy. Not to be confused with actual attractiveness (A), which is classically described by the universally objective Pitt-Beckham scale of hotness. This factor, though among the most important, contributes a larger weight to The Bachelor than to its lady-driven counterpart. We'll give Kaitlyn the benefit of the doubt that this won't be confounded by a-sub-b, also known as, the extent to which each bachelor appeared to be attracted to Britt.

Background (B): The extent to which we are exposed to a guy and/or his personal tragedy during Episode 1. This variable encompasses, not just the extent to which the audience is allowed to peer into the still very, very shallow recesses of each contestant's soul, but also, how sad each contestant makes us feel and their level of success in exploiting an adorable relative.

Awkwardness of Entrance (E): This is a controversial measure, but for each contestant who makes it through the first rose ceremony, the extent to which they made the rest of us cringe on night one can actually be a plus in terms of Staying Power. The embarrassing entrance can be your go to for stagnant conversations and for times you should be discussing things like what religion you plan to raise you kids (Yenter, 2013).

Featured Scene Percentage in "Coming Up" Montage (P): This can be misleading. Often the truly terrible villains dominate a lot of screen time and then go home by week 5, but as the draft is ultimately about who will put up points rather than who will win Kaitlyn's heart, it would be folly not to include it here.

Likelihood of Having a Girlfriend Back Home (L): This one sort speaks for itself. Also, it has historically had a disconcertingly high correlation with Attraction (a).

Mix these numbers all around (all of which will be based on a not at all arbitrary score out of 10) and you have yourself a metric that - not unlike an NFL quarterback's performance on the combine - is predictive of absolutely nothing. Happy Drafting Everyone!

                      SP = a*P(E+B) - L